


Impressions of You

by RubyBakeneko



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Established Relationship, Hand Jobs, Hannibal's Endless Fascination with Will's Dreams, M/M, Murder Husbands, Porn with Feelings, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 13:28:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20471783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyBakeneko/pseuds/RubyBakeneko
Summary: Will and Hannibal are generally at peace with their relationship, but Will avoids discussing the attraction he felt to Hannibal before the fall. Motivated by a combination of compassion and possessiveness, Hannibal tries to get to the roots of Will's discomfort.





	Impressions of You

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't completed a piece of writing in a long time, and I'm afraid I'm a little out of practice! I thought I'd tentatively reenter the fandom with some dialogue-heavy smut for #ItsStillBeautiful 2019.

Hannibal is composing, concentrating on the ebb and flow of the notes on his harpsichord. Like many things in the home he shares with Will, it is an imperfect instrument—better to accept this than to leave another trail of ostentatious purchases. He has no intention of being caught a second time. Still, there is a glow of satisfaction each time his fingers touch the keys.

He pauses, smelling the warm earthiness of vetiver soap before he hears the pad of footsteps on the stairs. "Breakfast?" he asks without turning around. "I replenished our kitchen cupboards while you were sleeping."

"Please," Will says, stifling a yawn. "That sounds perfect."

Hannibal smirks, twisting in his stool to face Will. He is wearing only a towel, and his skin is beautifully pink from the shower. "I rather think I wore you out yesterday," Hannibal says, looking with pleasure at the purplish bruise blossoming on Will's neck. "For years, what sustained me was the mere possibility of nights like that."

Will looks past him, eyes turning faintly glassy. "Have you seen my blue shirt?"

Hannibal blinks, a small muscle twitching in his jaw. "You'll have to be more specific."

Will shrugs. "It has buttons," he says. "Quite a few buttons."

Hannibal feels a twinge of irritation, lets out a little huff of air through his nose. "You have shirts in indigo, cerulean and periwinkle, to name only a few."

Will pushes the living room curtain open, peering out at the vivid sky. "Never mind, it's too humid for that one anyway."

Hannibal leaves the harpsichord and prepares breakfast on autopilot. His morning peacefulness drains out of him, replaced by unease and a fit of strange, directionless jealousy. He wants to hear every thought, wants to see every image and feel every fleeting desire that flutters across Will's mind. He knows the darkest, most violent urges Will has ever contemplated, painted in gruesome technicolor. They sleep with limbs tangled together every night and they gaze at each other over eviscerated corpses. But when it comes to sex, Will's inner life is a black box.

The same Will who is a generous, unselfconscious lover—who regularly climbs on top of him and rides him to a shuddering, explosive climax—shares and invites nothing more than feather-light pleasantries when asked about sex. He might as well be a stranger offering bland commentary on the weather. 

—

Perhaps, Hannibal supposes, he hasn't made it clear enough that he wants to talk about sex in more meaningful, reflective terms. He's mulling this over as they wake the next day.

"Morning," Will mumbles, mussed and sleepy as he opens his eyes. He flops over onto his right side, slinging an arm across Hannibal's chest. The presumptuousness and relaxed intimacy of the gesture makes Hannibal's heart swell.

Hannibal turns over so that they are face to face, easing his way into the conversation with the pace and carefulness of a man approaching a wild animal. "May I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

Hannibal keeps his expression casual, his posture loose. "What was the first thing you noticed about me?"

Will barely has to think about his answer. "Your perspicacity. Swiftly followed by your intrusiveness."

"My analytical ambush, as I called it."

"Yes." WIll says in the tone of a man who still holds some grudges. "That."

"When I heard and read about you, the first thing I noticed was your potential," Hannibal says.

Will grunts. "You and everyone else. I felt like a rusty tool passed from hand to hand."

"The more I got to know you, however, the more I realized the sort of danger you presented. In the end, that loomed largest for me."

"Are you talking about my much-lauded capacity for murder?" Will asks.

"No, I sensed that in many people. But you were the first to pose a real danger to _me_, and I was exhilarated by it. At the time, I wasn't aware of quite how many blindspots that created in me."

"Both of us were riddled with blindspots," Will says. “_Are_ riddled, perhaps.”

Hannibal smooths out the crease between Will's brows. "I believe we see more clearly now than we ever have," he says.

Will's expression softens. Hannibal gives him a gentle kiss, close-mouthed and unhurried, and Will melts into it as his mouth curves into a smile. 

Hannibal pulls back and looks into Will's eyes, studies the flecks of subtly different colors swirling together in his irises. "When did you start to consider that this kind of intimacy was possible—that we might be together physically?"

Will rolls onto his back and looks at the ceiling, hands behind his head. "I don't think I _ever_ considered it was possible," he says. "I didn't consider the reality of it at all for a long time. When I did, it wasn't as a possibility but as a necessity. An inevitability."

Hannibal purses his lips. "We were a foregone conclusion, then."

"Yes," Will says. "I knew it the moment you first kissed me, the day you removed the stitches from my cheek. It was as though something that had always been an inch out of sight was finally plain to me."

"And so your sexual attraction to me emerged into this world fully formed, a birth as sudden and sure as a bolt of lightning?"

Will snorts. "You sound insufferably pretentious. And skeptical."

"I am skeptical, I admit. I find it hard to believe you never thought about it—wondered about it. I did."

If Will is tempted to take the bait and ask about Hannibal's fantasies, his face does not betray it. Instead, he grimaces like there's a sour taste in his mouth. "I was a bit busy wrestling with my moral compass and orchestrating your demise."

"Please, Will. As though a mind as rich as yours would ever confine itself to a paltry two tasks," Hannibal says, then finally gives into his urge to be more direct. "This topic makes you evasive in a way I would have hoped would be outdated by now."

Will stiffens, visibly annoyed. He laughs, but the sound is hollow. "Has it never occurred to you that maybe I didn't think of you that way at all until after we left Baltimore? Can your ego withstand that outlandish scenario?"

Hannibal presses a kiss to his shoulder, intending to placate. "It isn't my ego that balks at your denials—it's my simple common sense."

Will rolls out of bed and stretches, theatrically casual. "I'm going to put the coffee on," he says. "It'll be ready when you come down."

—

Washed and dressed, Hannibal looks for Will and finds him staring out the living room window, the coffee forgotten. He stands with his hands in his pockets as he watches the sea. 

"You're perturbed," Will says, still facing away. "Discomfited. I can feel the restlessness of it buzzing around your skull."

"Are you sure these are not your own feelings, projected onto me? As I recall, you were the one who ended our conversation."

Will turns. "That's fair. Sometimes, it gets... tangled," he says. "What you feel, what I feel. But—whatever the source—there's something unresolved here, hanging like a sentence without punctuation."

"I'll speak plainly, then," Hannibal says. "I find it troubles me that you share so few thoughts about our physical relationship."

Will arches an eyebrow. "Are my incoherent vocalizations not sufficient evidence of my enthusiasm?"

"Don't misunderstand," Hannibal says. "I know you enjoy it."

"What else do you need to know?"

"You spoke about ego, and I suppose there is some truth in that. Like any lover, I don't wish to believe that my affection was ever one-sided," Hannibal admits. "I don't _need_ to know anything, as such. But there are things I want to know, and that I feel you avoid disclosing. I'm asking if there's a reason why."

Will takes a deep breath. "In the spirit of embracing your honesty, I will try my best to answer that."

"In your own time."

"There are a few reasons, I think."

"Start with the simplest and we'll go from there," Hannibal says.

Will shoots him a half-smile then looks away. "It's funny you should mention simplicity," he says. "It's simplicity I don't want to lose."

"Can you say more about that?"

Will takes a few steps forward, toe scuffing at an imaginary mark on the wooden floor. "It's just so _easy_—our sex life, I mean. It's natural, organic. It has never required careful negotiation, never been picked at and analyzed, deconstructed or turned inside out. I find peace in that."

Hannibal cocks his head. "Some people describe deeply satisfying sex as a kind of return to a place of childlike exploration, playful and unencumbered. In some ways, it is the most adult act. In others, it allows us to cast off the trappings of adulthood."

"Well, then. You understand."

"I understand. But—" Hannibal says, ignoring Will's impatient sigh. "I want to share everything with you. And in this one area, you disconnect me from your thoughts almost entirely."

Will paces over to the wall, putting distance between them. "Now for the harder part," he says. "The truth is that the physical dimension of our relationship is the one thing we didn't have before—and so it's the one thing that has never hurt."

Hannibal is silent, allowing Will to process his thoughts.

"If we talk too much about it—start treating it like we treat everything else—I worry we'll warp it, somehow," Will continues. "That we'll bring what we were into what we _are_. That then nothing will be unmarked, unspoiled."

"We bring all of what we were into what we are, and into all we'll ever be," Hannibal says. "It's naive to think otherwise."

“But there’s still _some_ type of barrier there. That's exactly why you're raising this topic for discussion in the first place. And if we make that barrier porous, if we let our past in…"

"...you imagine that we will also let in pain and ugliness," Hannibal finishes. "And there's something else, isn't there?"

"Yes," Will says quietly.

"Shame. You are ashamed of how you felt before we left our old lives." 

Will nods.

"Why?" Hannibal asks, quietly thrilled by the admission. "Is it because I was supposed to be the enemy, and your feelings about me were meant to be so clear to you?"

"It's because you were so _cruel_ to me, even when you thought you were kind. That I wanted you as I did, how I acted to justify it? It's embarrassing—masochistic. I was so angry and so euphoric, and it all got twisted around me, taut like a rope."

Hannibal backs him up against the dining room wall, cups his face and rubs a thumb along his bruised neck. "Tell me just one thing, Will. Let it out and let it sit between us, however ugly. Then we'll begin to see whether your fears reflect reality. What did you imagine when you wanted me?"

Will blinks rapidly "Oh, I tried not to imagine _anything_."

"You say 'tried'—should I infer failure?"

"It wasn't so much that I failed to stop myself imagining as that I failed to stop myself _feeling_. It was always under the surface, always simmering. Mostly, I could control where my mind took that craving when I was awake. I couldn't control it at night."

"Describe a scene from your dreams, then."

Will's lip quirks. "Such familiar territory, doctor."

Hannibal reaches between them and gently cups Will's cock, feels it gradually hardening in response to his touch. "Perhaps, but the context is new."

Will's eyelids flutter, his hips automatically pushing forward. "I—couldn't remember the dreams, mostly. I was just left with images, the echo of sensations. Impressions of you."

Hannibal swallows, trying to hide his greed. "Please, Will," he says. "Describe your impressions."

"Your skin was scalding," Will says. "Like you were burning me. You... you took your time with me."

Hannibal unbuttons Will's fly, slips a hand inside. He runs the tip of his index finger up the curve of Will's half-hard cock, so lightly that Will must barely feel it yet be utterly attuned to it, a tickle so faint that it is excruciating.

He leans in close to Will's face. "Did you like that?" he asks, voice soft and low as he works Will through his underwear with a light and rhythmic squeeze. "When I took my time with you?"

Will's lips part, his eyes darkening. "I felt dissected by it. It was thrilling."

Hannibal shifts, throbbing against his zipper. "And you felt so guilty," he says, his tone syrupy and exaggeratedly sympathetic. He knows he should be absolving Will, knows he meant to, but he feels a perverse jolt of arousal at the thought of Will racked with guilt, aroused and confused.

"I felt guilty because I seldom felt guilty enough."

"Will you let me try and uncouple those memories from their old shame?" Hannibal asks. He wants to get Will to the place where he can access these coveted desires without reserve, stripping off his inhibitions.

"Okay," Will says, so quiet it's barely audible.

—

In the bedroom, Hannibal pops the cap on the bottle of lube and pushes Will onto the bed, straddling him. Will is naked while Hannibal is still clothed, something that happened without conscious decision but that feels consonant with what they're doing.

Hannibal pumps a few drops of lube onto his fingers and wraps a loose fist around Will, stroking him slowly. "What else do you recall?"

"You, ah—" Will drags air in through his nose, as though steeling himself to resist. "You said I only needed to tell you one thing. Can we—"

Hannibal pauses mid-stroke. "We can stop if you would like," he says. He sees the conflict play out across Will's face.

There's a pause, heated and weighty, during which neither of them moves—finally, Will's lips part in acquiescence. "I remember your hair," he murmurs. "Sometimes soft, loose, falling into your eyes. Sometimes my hands were buried in it, pulling you... pulling you closer to me." 

Hannibal lets Will's view of him come to life in his mind, surprisingly romanticized for the time they are recollecting. "That's good, Will," he praises. "Keep going."

Will's cheeks and neck flush, his cock swelling in Hannibal's steadily moving hand. "Your tongue was working down the centre of my chest," he says, gazing up at Hannibal, his breathing labored now. "There was an ache in my shoulder from where your teeth had been. I—I could smell blood—"

Hannibal twists his wrist, makes Will's eyes roll back. "Ours or someone else's?"

"Both," Will grits out, fingers twisting in the sheet at his side.

"Not very hygienic."

"Fantasies—ah—fantasies don't have to be."

Hannibal swipes his thumb over the head of Will's cock, tightens his grip a fraction. "Fantasies," he repeats. "Not dreams."

Will looks caught, startled even through his haze of arousal. "I meant dreams."

"No," Hannibal says. "I don't think you did."

He slows the movement of his fist. Will pushes into it with a frustrated grunt, trying to get more friction, and Hannibal looks down to watch. His mouth fills with saliva at the sight of Will's erection, flushed and pretty, slick and leaking at the tip.

"We will go as far as you prefer and no further," Hannibal says, his meaning clear. Will can be honest and come, or obfuscate and be left in bed alone.

"I remember the way I imaged you'd talk to me," Will relents, voice breaking. "Remember the feeling of your breath in my ear. You made me admit I wanted it."

"Wanted what?"

Will moans, shakes his head, trembles like he's moments from orgasm. Hannibal stops stroking him, again, watches as his hips desperately lurch up to meet empty air. "To feel you inside me," he pants, his cock rigid and hot in Hannibal's loose grip.

"How did it feel?"

"I opened up for you so easily, like my body knew you should be there. Like it was welcoming you home."

Hannibal leans down until his lips are touching the shell of Will's ear. "Tell me how much you want it now," he whispers.

Will sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, his chest heaving. "_I need you_, Hannibal," he says, low and deliberate. He's superficially vulnerable in his nudity and yet undeniably powerful in the way he claws back just enough guile to harness the past, using it to chip away at Hannibal's self-control.

Hannibal squeezes out more lube, slips one finger inside Will and then another, watching his cock twitch. "Tell me just one more thing. What's the most secret part of this, the apex of your self-loathing?"

Will squeezes his eyes shut. "That it was all real," he says in a rush. "That I wasn't acting, that I'd never felt more myself. I, God—I wanted to run away with you. I wanted it _so much_. And I was so ashamed."

It's common for Hannibal to get to a place where his own need for orgasm is an afterthought, so submerged is he in Will's pleasure and abandonment. At Will's confession, the tension in Hannibal's body crashes back into his awareness and knocks the breath out of him. Waiting becomes ludicrous, unbearable, unthinkable. 

He rearranges their bodies and unzips his pants in seconds. He slides into Will, gripping his thighs and pushing in fast and deep. Will cries out, fingers immediately digging into Hannibal's shoulderblades, body surging up to pull him deeper still. It is tight, hot perfection and Hannibal groans in utter bliss. His heart races as the minutes pass and blur, his sensory immersion a constant marvel to him after so many decades of indifferent superiority. 

"So close," Will gasps, his back arching and his throat bobbing. He grabs Hannibal's hand and presses it against the silvery ridge of his abdominal scar, palm spread across it. He lets out a guttural moan and then comes in hot bursts over his stomach and Hannibal's fingers, his body taut and trembling with relief. It is intoxicating to watch. Hannibal's orgasm is like a reflex, overwhelming him as he stares at Will's face, at the way his lips part in serene obscenity.

They lie in silence and stillness for a long time. Hannibal can hear the song of a blackbird and remembers that they are said to sing after rain.

"How do you feel?" he asks eventually.

"Exorcised, I think," Will says, his voice hoarse from overuse. "Free."

Hannibal kisses his forehead. "Freedom is what you deserve."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm also [RubyBakeneko on tumblr](https://rubybakeneko.tumblr.com), where I've [posted this story](https://rubybakeneko.tumblr.com/post/187411351730/impressions-of-you-rubybakeneko-hannibal-tv) if you ever feel inclined to share it. I [have a twitter account now too](https://twitter.com/rubybakeneko), but I don't really know what I'm doing and haven't used it in any meaningful way yet!


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